Omega, meet Alpha

Over the past week I've had a couple of difficult bits of news concerning my artistic endeavors. The first was that, indeed, we did not achieve enough enrollment in

In Bocca al Lupo

to make the trip happen. That was the sort of news one receives with little surprise, though it still saddens and disappoints. In many ways, I was counting on going back to Italy this year, as an actor, teacher and just me. That was my fault, but . . .

COME ON! WE'RE TALKING ITALY, HERE!

In other difficult news, one of the outcomes of Thursday's update meeting for

The Torture Project

was that . . . well . . . I'm maybe probably not performing in the show. And the reason? The character should be nineteen years old. And I, believe it or no, do not look nineteen. (Having that fact confirmed is, in some ways, a relief. I'm ready to play men these days.) There was a lot more to that meeting, the which I will address anon, but just that part was the difficult bit.

Meanwhile,

A Lie of the Mind

continues to receive a very positive reception, and I feel better and better about the work I'm doing in it. Last night Friends

Patrick

and

Melissa

(1/2 of The Exploding Yurts) were there, and we had some discussion of the merits and foibles of Sam Shepard's plays. It was nerve-wracking to perform for my colleagues, but I should have known better. They were the best audience members that night, laughing unabashedly when they found something funny instead of pausing to wonder, "Oh my--should I be laughing at this?"

So what does an actor do when work falls through, or a project hangs in precarious balance for him or her? I don't know what other actors do, but I've always found it helpful to curl up in the corner of my closet, sucking my thumb and squeezing my eyes shut until I can see purple and orange explosions behind my eyelids.

I'm sure I'm not alone.

In all seriousness though (a first for this 'blog), it can be really rough to lose work when all you really want to do is work, and it often feels as though such moments of loss pile up on a guy. "When sorrows come, they come not in single spies, but in battalions." Word, Hamlet. Word. This kind of situation can also be inspiration for a fellow to throw in the towel on the whole thing. I mean, nobody's clamoring for your work, for your presence on the stage, and now it feels as though not only are they not shouting your name, they're actively discouraging your aspiration. I would be lying if I said these moments don't have me contemplating a life of nine-to-five employment, in which I have the money to support the little entertainments easily found and purchased in most of the shopping malls of this great nation. I mean, that actually sounds really nice to me sometimes, no foolin'. An uncomplicated life, which I am somewhat more in control of, and that no one will outwardly question. Just leave me alone. I'm normal.

Whatever normal is, I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't consider repeated crying jags in public places to be it. (Which may simply be an indication of how screwed up people's perception of "normal" is.) Those of you who've seen the show already, or have been reading recent entries here, know that in the eleventh hour (being really honest, more like one A.M.) I had a breakthrough regarding the last moment of the thing. Since then, and thanks in ginormous part to fellow actors

Todd d'Amour

and

Laura Schwenninger

, I have consistently achieved that emotional sincerity necessary for my character's final moment on stage. Last night I even got it to the point of strength and relaxation that I could afford to really try to fight

through

the tears to say what needed to be said, which is what the moment should truly be.

But a switch was flipped, in some ways, and the damn thing was stuck last night. On my way home, I kept weeping unexpectedly. It was really pretty comic, with a little distance. (My fellow passengers on the grand ol' Metropolitan Transit Authority must have thought that it was a

really sad

crossword puzzle I was solving.) Maybe it was a simple case of sort of programming a "crying trigger," (in the show I have to make sure I don't breathe too rapidly, in order to let the emotion happen) and not having a handle on letting go of it yet. Maybe I've tapped some well of emotion I've had a plug on for some time now (that's a nasty habit of mine I'll own right up to). Maybe it really WAS an emotional crossword puzzle. I mean, Maura Jacobson knows her stuff, I'm telling you.

The point is not to wonder at the

why

of my behavior. Rather, I find value in an earnest acknowledgment of the behavior--neither judging it nor letting it go unnoticed--and moving through it. Whether I was sad for Frankie, Jake, myself, the ending of hopes and beginning of dreams, or for a five-letter word that means "narrowly prevent," I was experiencing grief. Grief's important. I'm not going to go seeking grief (apart from when a script calls for it) but it's there for a reason, and avoiding it is really only saying, "Grief, yeah. I remember you, but look, I uh, I'll have to catch up with you later, 'cause, I got some things . . . to do . . . .

LOOK! A SEAGULL!

"

[sound of hurried footsteps rushing away]

You'll meet grief again. He's there to help, ultimately. No sense in delaying it, much less ignoring it indefinitely. Every ending is a beginning of something new, and grief is part of how we get from A to B. And "B" is always a good place to be.

PS - This is how the alphabet would look without Q & R.

PPS - Avert.

The Revealing Curtain

When I was thirteen years of age, life started to be pretty difficult for me. That's a pretty universal statement, I believe. I don't believe I've ever met anyone who said, "Thirteen? Oh man, that's just when things started to get GOOD! Everything came so easy, and there was no confusion--not like at five. Man, at five, things were ROUGH...." It has different flavors, but they all relate to puberty, and moving on, and beginning to get a sense that someday (possibly today) you will have to fend for yourself in a much more real sense than you ever imagined before. So I don't believe my experience was unique, per se, but perhaps a little more out-there than some.

One aspect of those difficulties was that one day, in the middle of

a math class

, I took a big ol' streeeeeeeeetch // en I woke on my side on the floor to discover my tongue was bleeding. I had bitten through it, you see, when I passed out.

A very involved story follows, with a lot of doctor visits, tests, etc., the which pretty much filled up my summer before starting high school. I was ultimately diagnosed with a condition called "reflexive

epilepsy

," (a diagnosis I have had some reason to doubt) which, in sum and substance, is identified by the tendency to short-circuit one's brain with a specific series of physical cues, such as stretching a particular series of muscles in conjunction. I was put on a drug called Tegratol, which I hated. It made me phenomenally sleepy around the afternoon and--so I diagnosed it--rather depressed, lacking in spark. Being thirteen and imaginative, I also came to convince myself that what I had glimpsed the few times I had the seizure was a kind of peek behind the curtain of reality. To sum it up--and at the risk of sounding even more pretentious than I already may--I thought I was catching glimpses of actuality beyond the world that we had created for ourselves, to occupy our senses and keep us sane. That actuality, was nothingness.

Which was a little depressing.

The seizures are (yes, I still have them from time-to-time) like this: Usually they result from a standing, full-body stretch--after I have been still for some time--with my arms raised above my head. As I'm coming out of the stretch, I feel a tingling numbness that begins somewhere between my back and neck, and rapidly races through my arms and legs. My head gets, well, warm and loud. But the loudness has no noise (bear with me here), it's just a silent over-powering of any sounds in the room. The last thing that happens is that an oddly cobweb-like curtain sort of envelopes my vision, and does so rather slowly, given the drastic nature of what seems to be happening to the rest of my body. I've always thought of it as a curtain, but maybe a cocoon is more apt imagery, because it seems gray, chaotically woven, and it comes in around the edges of my vision, narrowing into a point until rapidly fading to black in which time seems to stop until I open my eyes, a few seconds later and usually looking up at a ceiling.

This story, she does have a happy ending. Somehow, in the course of grappling with high school and all it tides, I learned how to stave off the seizures when I felt them coming on. (My parents always claim the Tegratol helped in that; I always want all the credit for myself.) It was strange to discover, and took what I believe to be a lot of the resources the Tegratol robbed me of: determination, focus and a little fire. The trick is rather simple, actually. When I feel the tingling, and the curtain begins to descend, I simply focus my will on whatever I can still see in the center of my vision and sort of fight the curtain back. (Don't ask me to describe "fight" in this context. Sorry. Couldn't say.) The only thing that happens then is that, occasionally, people around me will wonder why I've just stopped and stared for a few seconds all of the sudden. It it happens less and less, and gets easier to stave off, as I get older.

Which is pretty sweet.

As was last night's performance of

A Lie of the Mind

. (HA! Thought I'd left the show behind, did you? Don't worry; I won't analyze every performance for a month. Next week we'll be back to fart jokes.) That may seem like a lame transition, but it is intentionally obfuscational. (Is SO a word!) Because you have to understand what coming out of my seizures is like to get the association I'm about to make.

Where Wednesday's performance was taught and tense, last night's was more a fiery calm. It was still an explosive, passionate show, but we had all relaxed a notch . . . just enough to be a little more in the moment, a little less concerned with making an impression. I don't know how everyone else felt (no cast hangage after the second show), but for me it was magnificent. I felt in charge of my game (apart from going up

COMPLETELY

on a line in my first scene), and much more loving toward my own character. None of the whine came through. His fight was strong enough to stand up against all those obstacles (see

4/5/07

). Great, great stuff. I was so relieved, and yet still timorous over that last line and its delivery. I had to tell myself not to think about it prior to the scene. I was afraid I would psych myself out.

The scene arrived, I opened my eyes, and there was Todd, playing my brother, barely holding it together. My character feels relief to see him in that moment, and I felt a relief at how

there

he was. His tears got through to me, and I knew if I could keep those feelings alive, blow on their embers, I'd be okay for that last line. But the audience is literally two feet away to my left, and I have to say that damn penultimate line expressing confusion over Jake's actions, and I know Laura is actually the director's girlfriend, not Todd's wife, and why can't I have a wife already anyway and what if I go up on my

last

line, too . . . . But then Laura, as Beth, says her line: "I remember you now." She's not weeping as she has before, but she sounds so fragile, so very very certain, yet scared, and I'm back. All I have to do is . . . not. Not do, anything. Be there. Just be there. If that's a difficult thing to do, I don't know about it right then, because I can't, because if I do I'll lose this . . . I've got to let it flow through me, I can't just hang on to it, but I've got to trust it'll still be there. Don't let it go. Don't hold on to it. Be. Be.

It was as though I could feel that curtain again, not around my eyes, but around my heart. (We're speaking metaphorical heart here.) And it's woven together out of all the experiences I've had that have taught me to have perspective, and protect myself, and to equate that rationale/ity with self-worth. It's me, this curtain. It's a part of me, and there's no abolishing it, but last night I held the cords and I had the strength. And the line came through the tears, and I saw and was seen clearly.

Gang, I don't know if I've nailed it. I rather believe tonight I'll have another experience of shut-down, sort of a backlash from last night's success. But maybe not. I hope not. I can't antagonize myself over it, because that only decreases the likelihood of being in that moment again. All I can do is my best, and try to learn from the worst of it.

Oh right, right! And as for actuality being nothingness: I decided it's cool to have a choice. I choose somethingness.

We Will Consolidate Your Obstacles! Sign On to MendingTree.com Now!

Dewds, oh my dewds. We did certainly open night the last, and to a packed house (the which, in

MTS

terms, is something like 45 people), which was intimidating, exciting, moving, fascinating, deeply affecting and a little gassy.

For those of you not in the know (And just

what

, pray tell, are you doing outside of the know? Don't you know the know is no place to be outside of? It's cold out there! At least put on a

jacket

!), I am referring to my current actorly occupation,

A Lie of the Mind

. For more details on my process of bringing my character limping on to the stage (literally) last night, see . . . well . . .

just about every entry I've made in the past month

. (Discounting those ill-advised forays into the details of my day job. Please.)

I would like to say the show went off without a hitch, but that would be kind of miraculous, given the circumstances. It was our very first run with an audience, which is like having a very overwhelming actor suddenly join your cast, saying, "Hi. I don't know anything about what we're supposed to be doing, so I'm just going to screw with the rhythms you've spent weeks getting used to and react loudly to things you do. Or not. Whichever I feel like in the moment." It's particularly like this at lovely ol' MTS, where their motto of necessity is, "If the audience isn't all up in your grill, you must be in somebody else's theatre." (At least this show is staged relatively "proscenium;" the two prior full-length shows I did there were staged "tennis court," with audience on either side: Gah! Really close audience! [turns other way] Gah! Really close audience!) It was wonderful to finally have the missing character, but also very much an adjustment. Some of the more interesting snafus:

• People transposing lines. I don't think it was obvious to the audience, but to our fellow actors it was like you could almost hear the erring actor thinking, "No...wait...oh sh*t!"

• Folks over-extending blocking. This is easy to do in such a small space, and when that audience adrenaline steps in, we get a little larger. The best example of this was a moment when Jake accidentally got too close to a room Beth was in, precipitating their moment of reunion. Apparently Ridley Parson, the actor playing Mike, was moments away from throwing Beth back in the room just to keep things on track.

• Props getting as excited as we are. I don't really believe in pathetic fallacy in everyday life (as good a novel as "Still-Life with Woodpecker" may be), but I swear to you that there are gremlins that live in stage props, and opening night is when they get most unruly. Last night Jake's cap kept taking a walking tour of our side of the stage as he was trying to manage his psychic breakdown, Baylor's socks missed landing on his knees (prompting the actress playing Meg to say "Jesus Christ!" in his face, which, believe it or not, is not in the script) and when Mike tromped into the house and deposited the deer carcass, one of its antler heads broke off and skittered across the stage.

We all had a good laugh over food and drink afterward, but in the moment, on stage, these things feel like the end of one's carefully crafted world. It will all become lore that lasts for the next month, with each of us coming up with our own antler references to slip into conversation with the others. The show got off to a good start last night. We were charged up, and we learned a lot. Now it's a matter of incorporating those lessons into our work in a fluid enough way that will allow us to adapt to different audiences. Because falling on your proverbial face as a result of anticipated audience reaction is a whole lot worse than antler shrapnel.

As for myself,

(lord God in heaven, must I move on to myself [no] well it is my 'blog [that's right--you make the rules] but who will respect me for creating a double-standard in which I critique everything but my own work [did you start this 'blog to garner respect?] ...can we talk about this later? [Hm? Oh. Yeah. Sure.])

I didn't feel too great about how my scenes went last night, particularly one scene between Frankie and Beth. I was very nervous, which affected my performance, but moreover Frankie just came out too whiny most of the time. God knows he's got plenty of excuse to whine: he's got to clean up his brother's mess, deal with his neurotic family, endure an untreated bullet wound for two-thirds of the play and resist the advances of a woman when he is, in fact, quite lonely. BUT. The audience isn't there to see someone whine, they're there to see people fight, to fight for what they want and need, and overcome expectation at least once.

Frankie is tricky in this regard, and reminds me specifically of playing Nick in Over the River and Through the Woods.... Both are these well-equipped, intelligent young men who spend the bulk of the action accomplishing next-to-nothing, wrestling with the frustration of having to work with other personalities that simply overpower their own. The temptation, the ease, is to play their frustration. I mean, that's what it's all about at first glance: They are frustrated by their inability to move on. It's comic. It's real. However, that frustration is actually an obstacle to what they want to achieve, so whether they recognize it or not in a given moment, these young men need to use more specific tactics to overcome what at first glance seems to be firing them up. That's tricky enough. Now, the difference between Nick and Frankie is that Frankie HAS A BULLET HOLE IN HIS LEG.

That's also an obstacle, but one an actor has to affect. I mean, I could give myself a Charley Horse before I enter (I do punch my leg, but only to try and create a little reminder of the specific area of the wound), but even that would fade within minutes, and doesn't have remotely the same effect a 30-30 bullet through the hamstring would. So now we've got two obstacles inherent in Frankie's journey, plus whatever is thrown at him from the other characters, plus an eventual fever and delirium, plus the simple simple fact that...for some rather unexplained reason...not one of the four family members has any interest in getting him out of their house.

My only point being that it's not an easy role. It often feels like Frankie's more a tool than a character, a device for achieving the brotherly denouement in the final scene. An actor, however, must never concern him/herself with that kind of consideration. It's antithetical to an actor's purpose of really being there, and believing in what he or she is doing. But dag gum it, I'm a thinker, and it's hard to turn that off. That's part of the appeal of acting for me--having good reason to work on letting go of that when it isn't serving me.

The blessing/curse of theatre is that you get chance after chance to redeem yourself. Tonight I will run lines for my scenes with Jake and Beth beforehand, warm-up with more focus on my voice (to avoid throat tightness, which can contribute to unintentional whining), and do something meditative and grounding, with the hope it will help to prepare myself to build a fight from the ground up. We'll see how it goes. The moment of truth will take place on the stage, where it belongs.

Opening Up to You...

If you haven't yet seen

A Lie of the Mind

, at

Manhattan Theatre Source

, go out immediately and buy an industrial strength, gas-powered power generator, jumper cables and two large sponges. Find a menacingly silent, mustachioed man to attach the cables to the generator, and the sponges to the other ends, activate the generator, and force you to remove your clothing and stand in running water. The menacingly silent, mustachioed man should know where to go from there.

IT...IS...A DELIGHT!

{Shh, shh.... Don't be scared. I was channeling James Lipton via Will Ferrell, and referencing the infamous torture sequence from

Lethal Weapon

. Riggs', not Murtough's. I mean, the salt thing might actually have hurt more, but come on. Unless a torture sequence involves a malevolent Asian man, I'm just not sufficiently terrorized.}

In actuality, you can't yet have seen

A Lie of the Mind

in that particular milieu. Because it opens tonight.

Hold me.

Yesterday was a very good preparation overall. I was at the Source by 3:30 (thanks to the benevolent slackerdom of my day-job boss) to work over my second scene with Todd. It went very well--better than it did in the run later that night--and with the adjustments we made I finally feel as though my character gets the kick start he's been needing. Thereafter, Daryl was working on scenes I am not a part of, so I busied myself with adding more artful gore to the pants I wear after my character gets shot in the leg. I love those surreal moments occasioned by working in the theatre. Anyone who walked in the Source betwixt the hours of 4:30 and 5:00 yesterday probably saw a pair of pale blue jeans stuffed with discarded press releases hanging from the ceiling, dripping blood onto more paper layered on a table beneath them. We got to running the show by 7:00 or so, which is fairly close to the time we had planned to start, which is fairly remarkable.

Tonight we go up with an audience for the first time at 8:00. We're sold out for both tonight and tomorrow night, I hear tell, so chances are good that I'll know a whole hell of a lot more about what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong in the next 48 hours. In terms of last-minute revelations, however:

• I was right about Frankie thinking he was so much smarter than Jake, but wrong about him loving him too much to display it . . . particularly when it comes to discussing Beth's possible murder.

• My monologue can go south at any moment, and I must be vigilant 'bout that. Also, I tend to go up on lines that involve speaking at length without a period. Too many options. Need to run lines before show every night.

• That final moment that's been troubling me has everything to do with taking in as much of Beth and Jake's moment just before, and simply being relaxed enough to respond to that.

Opening night is frightening, particularly when you've had no preview audiences. I don't care who you are: Yikes. It's thrilling, though, the fear. It has charged my whole day, and only created one obstacle: that of wanting to leap from a window in order to not be at work. But I get by, because very soon I won't even be in New York. I'll be in Montana, with a bullet hole in my leg.

Wish me luck.

Repeatable Action

This was a very necessary skill for an actor, according to my dearest college acting teacher,

Gary C. Hopper

. He was the one who enthusiastically took on all the Freshman classes for their first year of training, like some kind of manic

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman

, and took a very personal interest in each and every one of we chosen few (seventy-five to start, I believe) forgetting all we thought we knew and undertaking his approach to creating believable, effective moments on stage. It was always with a huge, toothy grin that he would offer scathing criticism of our naive little choices, and with said same grin he gave us his own pearls of wisdom regarding the oldest art. Acting axioms, if you will:

• "In general" is the enemy of good art. (This one is stolen, I believe.)

• Would you like some fries with that Big Mac? (Translation: There are no discernible stakes to what you're doing, so why are you even on stage, you douche bag?)

• Acting! Theatre is my life! (Translation: People must be able to see, at all times, that glint in your eye that tells them you derive your greatest joy from moments spent in rehearsal and on stage.)

• His intensely formal formula for explicitly stating one's intention in each scene: "Because I feel _______, due to having been _______, I want to _______ [NAME OF CHARACTER], so that s/he will feel _______, resulting in _______."

Apart from these axioms (I know that last one isn't an axiom, and I would ask you to kindly shut the hell up), he would also use these little phrases to recall to our minds earlier lessons. Case in point, his sing-song recitation of the words "Repeatable action!" whenever you failed to fulfill established blocking, or claimed you could juggle and proceed to drop a ball. It's common sense, especially for a theatre actor. That actor must be able not only to produce genuine moments on stage, but do so with consistency every performance.

I am magnificent at this. I won't lie to you (not even in my Mind). At this, I rule. One director, who worked with me on Proof and Over the River and Through the Woods... out at The Northeast Theatre, once wrote me that I was "the most consistent actor" she had worked with. But it is a double-edged betleH, this madness of skill. I mean, who delights in the knowledge that they are non-deviant when it comes to art? Reliability is a good thing in one's fellow actor, I agree, but we'd all rather have a moment on stage be alive than choreographically consistent. And supposing one's consistency is actually a regularity of badness or, worse yet, mediocrity?

My love of the repeatable action has deep roots in this kid's psyche. (By "this kid's," I am of course referring to myself in the third person, thereby cautioning you that a. I'm about to get all psychoanalytical on yo' ass, whilst simultaneously consoling you that b. I appreciate the dramatic irony of self-aggrandizement and how it relates to an actor talking [much less writing] about his or her person.) I was pretty much always a guy who appreciated a good plan. In school, I used to get tense about going into a class without knowing what we were supposed to be doing that day (see 3/8/07 for analysis of my absolute need to know everything about everything ever). One of the main appeals of theatre, in my earlier days of interest, was the presence of a script. When I would get into arguments with my friend Bridget (sorry to put you on the spot, B, but you were the only one I fought with when I was growing peach fuzz) I would actually kind of have to step out of them in order to gather my thoughts. I couldn't just get mad and say irrational things. That would have been, you know . . . irrational.

And the patterns continue into Jeff-the-Present (as opposed to Jeff-the-Past, not Jeff-the-Absent, nor Jeff-the-Only-A-Card). All this circus stuff I've gotten myself into, you think that's solely because I wish I were a vigilante superhero? Predominantly, sure, but solely? And the clowning I've been working on, I suppose I just like the idea of self-imposed humiliation? (Well okay: You have a point there.) No, it's choreography. As is my tendency to take jobs with theatres with which I have previously worked, rather than putting my proverbial testicles on the metaphorical line and playing Rizzo in some West Village cabaret. Not loyalty, oh no: Choreography.

And step-ball-change, step-ball-change!

There's something to be said for choreography. Get not me wrong. Only what good is it without that certain indefinable passion, that razor's edge that makes everyone sit up and feel something? For the past several years I have worked hard at letting go of the need to be choreographically precise in my acting, and allowing that spirit of madness (this is the word a control freak uses to describe spontaneity) into my work. A Lie of the Mind is a pretty classic example of this effort on my part, and I don't write this solely for the purpose of pimping my show on you. (Predominantly, sure.) My performance only lives (I'm talking basic life support, here) when I let go of our decisions in rehearsal and let it all happen for the first time, yet I resist this condition, I suppose because it feels hokey, or irresponsible, to me. Well, to my left brain, anyway. And let me tell you (I'm here to say [even for me, the parentheticals are getting out of hand in this one]), if I'm at one end of the control/chaos spectrum, Friend Todd is at the other. He's brilliant at letting go. In a way, this contrast between us makes for perfect casting of these roles. Still, I feel a need to rise to his level in that ratio of consistency and life. I have a lot to learn from Mr. d'Amour.

Because I feel limited, due to my inhibitions, I want to kick ass in this show, so that the show will feel sufficiently ass-kicked, resulting in my career rocketing to new artistic heights.

Repeatable action is a valuable skill in theatre and film, but talent trumps all. (As to defining talent, someone once said, "Talent is like pornography. You can't define it, but you know it when you see it.") In life, I think the talent is in determining when a repeatable action is really called for. It can be easy to get stuck in a rut, and scary as hell to come bounding out of said rut headfirst. Yet necessary, I believe. We were not made for ruts. I applaud people who stick to their principles, but I shout for them that break the rules in order to learn something new.